Dear photograpers: Think before you shoot!

I use stock photography to help present products, furniture or interior designs. Unfortunately 99,9% of all stock photography is useless for this purpose, because the photographers have no idea whatsoever about the purpose of stock photography. So they keep perpetuating the same basic mistakes over and over again.

An example:

Today I want to find an image of a woman sitting in a chair on a white background. I want to photoshop this woman into a chair, that I have designed. So I search 'woman sitting in chair on white backgrund' and get 22 pages of results – and not a single useable image! 99% are useless because the model is looking flirtingly right into the camera. The rest are useless because the models are sitting in strange positions, using unusual gestures, grimacing or looking like, they're having an orgasm.

How hard can it be? Just sit on the chair, damnit. There must be a million ways, you can do just that. Look somewhere else, for Gods sake. i dont want interaction, I want a recording of a reality. Dont try to be artsy. Stock photography is supposed to be a tool, not an art. Don't do fancy crops. I want to crop the image myself.

If you can do just that – nothing more and nothing less – you will earn money.

Posted: 06/06/2013, 09:29:42 AM

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Very informative and useful post! Being new to stock, this will definitely help to improve my skills. Thank you for your time!

Might I asked a question please? Do you as a Designer care if an image is based on the 1/3 rule or could careless if it follows the 1/3 rule, giving you the option to crop? Just curious as I've uploaded some images with Designers in mind; their needs for copy and plenty of leeway for crop to use as they see fit, but cannot usually get them approved unless I crop out copy or creative crop space for the designer and bring it to the 1/3 rule.

Posted: 06/06/2013, 10:19:35 AM

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